Brickfilms.com
Brickfilms.com is a website focused on the art of brickfilming. It was founded in 2000 by Jason Rowoldt and is the earliest example of a website dedicated to the LEGO animation community. History 'Founding' On December 15th, 2000, Jason Rowoldt posted an announcement to the LEGO enthusiast newsgroup Lugnet.com outlining his plan for a website dedicated to films created using LEGO. He had created the empty domain Brickfilms.TopCities.com, coining the term 'brickfilm' in relation to LEGO filmmaking. Rowoldt's goal was to compile all brickfilms available on the internet into one place; The Brickfilms Movie Directory. At launch, Rowoldt's directory would include films by Thomas Foote, Marc Atkin, Christopher Brawn, Robert Thomas and Stephen Roberts, in addition to those by Rowoldt himself. He also planned to search across the internet for any other films he had not yet found and to allow submissions of brickfilms from the general public. The site would also feature a forum dedicated to all aspects of brickfilming, which Rowoldt was inspired to include due to Lugnet lacking a forum for the topic.Lugnet post from Jason Rowoldt announcing the site 'Jason Rowoldt Era (2000 - 2003)' After content was created for the domain, Brickfilms.TopCities.com was launched by Jason Rowoldt on the 16th of December, 2000.Archive of Brickfilms.TopCities.com listing the launch date The earliest forum was hosted externally on Server.com.Original Server.com forum By the beginning of 2001, there were 16 films listed in the directory, and Rowoldt would soon begin publishing interviews with filmers and guides to various aspects of brickfilming. In May, a request was put out for a volunteer to assist with reviewing film submissions and to write articles for the site, and in July, Jared Gilbert was added to the Brickfilms staff.Older News archive The site was moved to Brickfilms.com on March 8, 2001.History of Brickfilms document On July 30th, in celebration of the hundreth film in the directory, Brickfilms announced its first contest, the Classical Movie Contest. On August 14th, the Server.com forum was retired and a new forum was launched on ezboard.com.Final news archive on the TopCities siteezboard forum archive In December, Brickfilms announced its second contest, the Historical Fiction Contest, to mark the one-year anniversary of the site. By 2002, the domain Brickfilms.TopCities.com, which previously the domain Brickfilms.com had redirected to, had been disused.TopCities 2002 archive which was used on t-shirts''|right]]On January 4th 2002, Jason requested a technical assistant to help with a site redesign and development of new site features. This role was eventually filled by Mike Yacullo. On January 17th, Jay Silver joined the staff as a graphics artist after creating designs for Brickfilms.com merchandise.First 2002 news archive More staff members were added later in the year, with Robert Graff joining in April to maintain the FAQ and Nick Maniatis in July as another writer for the directory.History of Brickfilms document Work on a complete redesign of the site was underway for much of 2002. On November 22 2002, the redesigned site was formally announced with a projected release window of January or February 2003.Official announcement of the redesigned site The core development team at this time was Jason Rowoldt, Jay Silver, Mike Yacullo and Nick Maniatis. The headline feature of the redesign was to be a new searchable film directory with reviews, categories and other special features. In January 2003, Rowoldt requested a second coder for the redesign. Loïc Desjardins joined the development team in this role.Request for another coder to work on the redesign In February, Mike Yacullo had to leave the development team. Work on the redesign remained ongoing.Update on the status of the site from February 2003 In late March, Rowoldt announced a public test of the new forum which was to be part of the redesigned site. The community was to migrate over to this forum from the ezboard forum after the testing.Announcement of the testing of the new forum On May 29 2003, Jason Rowoldt announced that due a lack of time and motivation, he could not continue running Brickfilms.com. The site was put up for sale. If a buyer were not to be found in around two weeks, the site would become defunct. On the 5th of June, it was announced that Brickfilms.com would be purchased by Joshua Leasure. Joshua Leasure Era (2003 - 2007) References Category:Brickfilming websites Category:Pages under construction